Check out the Bee, man...

Since Bill Simmons does a running diary on the major sporting events like the NBA Draft or the Super Bowl, I thought I’d try my hand at a writing a running diary on the Scripps National Spelling Bee, because it would be the sports journalist equivalent. Let’s see how this goes.

The 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee Running Diary

7:08 a.m. - We’re getting these great little informational packages about our Bee contestants. Here we meet Josephine Kao and opens with her sitting in the Mork from Ork Egg Chair. What we learned about Ms. Kao is she’s 14, she thinks bullying isn’t cool and she likes peek-a-boo. Great work, ESPN!

7:10 - Josephine Kao gets her word “myriarch” and dives right into the veteran hand writing move, then in a bit of gamesmanship she continues to drop some knowledge on the judges and tell them, not ask them, what the root definitions are. To cap it off, she’s doesn’t even to wait to hear if she’s right or not after she answers; no she just smiles and walks off. Only dropping the mic, Randy Watson style, would have shown more confidence. I like Ms. Kao already.

7:11 - They say this kid is only 13!!!! He’s about 6’10” and his voice is about an octave deeper than mine. You know how they say baseball players have been growing out their hair and beards to hide their enlarged heads. Well, this kids got both. A blonde mop-top and some facial hair. I need some HGH test results on Mr. Alex Wells.

7:17 - Erin Andrews just reported that she ran into some of the kids at the pool yesterday, I imagine it played out the pool scene from Caddyshack, when Lacey Underall showed up.

7:32 - Another informative piece on one our spellers, Kyle Mou. Sitting in the Mork from Ork chair he tells us that he doesn’t really like spelling and that he thinks it’s boring to study. He just does it because he said his parents will ship him back to China if he doesn’t win. Just kidding, I made that last part up. Maybe.

7:35 - I’ve just realized how many nine to thirteen year-olds there are, that are all smarter than me. The number is waaaayyy larger than I thought coming into the Bee.

7:44 - Another informative package, on Sidharth Chand. Chand handles the Mork from Ork chair like a veteran. He sits in their cross-legged not phased by the lights at all. Sid then goes on to tell us he’s really into Reggae and his favorite reggae artist is Bob Marley because “he’s the first, the best and the only one.” Then he rolled up a spliff and told us that Jah will provide him the answers. Chand is also from Michigan. I like this kid as my early favorite.

7:49 - Erin Andrews pulls aside Bee contestant Serena Skye Laine-Lobsinger for our first sideline report of the morning. I’m glad to see that not only do athletes use the same tired cliches, but so do spelling bee contestants. We learn that Serena tries to stay poised when she’s up on stage, that she spells each word like it’s her last and she relies on her training and hard work to get her through the tough times.

Do we really need sideline reporting? If you replaced the words “stage” and “word” with “court” and “game” and told me that Tyler Hansbrough said that last sentence. I would totally believe it. Now some of you are saying, “Hey, Paul what about the hers and the she’s?” Even with those in there I'd still believe it came from Hansbrough. I said it!

8:00 - The competitions youngest challenger, nine year-old Sriram Hathwar, gets the “DING!” As he mistakenly replaces the “e” in fodient with an “a.” Classic rookie mistake, but that’s okay, even Michael Jordan had to pay his dues before he won it all. I feel like we’ll be seeing a lot more of Sriram in competitions to come; I’m calling it now I think he’ll win in 2014.

8:18 - I gotta say I’m seeing a lot of mustaches on these spellers... If we find out, years later, that some of my spelling heros were caught using P.E.Ds; I’d be devastated. It would be like the Barry Bonds home run record all over.

This got me to thinking, “What other possible scandals could we see from the Spelling Bee?”

1. Transmitters - What would be easier? Teaching your kid millions of different words, and word origins or teaching your kid Morse Code, hooking he/she up with a transmitter and sitting in the back of the room with a dictionary. You could dot-dot-dash your way to a $41,000 in cash and prizes!
2. Identical Twins - Twice the spellers tackling half the dictionary. The key is you have to slide them in-and-out during commercial break. That would be tough considering how many eyes there are on the event.

(I would love to hear from you on other ways you could cheat at the Bee. Email me and I’ll mention them in the next post.)

8:27 - Fourteen year-old Andrew Traylor (no relation to Robert “Tractor” Traylor) steps up to the mic and the analyst informs us that Andrew, like most of the competitors, began reading at a very young age and at eight he read a book about how to be a good parent. He then told his parents what they were doing wrong as parents. I’m not kidding.

If that was my kid, my comeback would be “Well, I just read a book called ‘What makes a child annoying?’ and you’re doing everything perfect!”

8:36 - ROUND 5. Or as I like to call it “The round that separates the dweebs from the nerds.”

8:42 - Noooooooooooo! Josephine Kao goes down like a ton of bricks. Ugh. My early favorite to win it has been ousted. Some of kids even give her a standing “O.” It’s any home-schooled kids game now.

8:44 - Thank you, Alex Wells for easing the pain from losing Kao. You subtly shifted awkward heavy breathing into an imitation of Darth Vader. Well, played sir. Unfortunately all your joking may have cost you the “Bee.” We’ve now had four straight “Dings!” to start Round 5.

Oh! As Mr. Wells walks off I figured out who he reminded me of, Robert Swift minus the tattoos and athleticism. Okay, just the tats.

8:56 - Veronica Penny reminds me of a young, Rebecca Sealfon. The way she throws her face into her hands, to visualize the word, makes me incredibly nervous, I think she might faint.

8:59 - With seven of the first eight kids getting dinged, tension is starting to mount on the faces of these kids. The only thing now that could make these kids more anxious is if the moderator asked them to partner up for the mid-round couples dance.

9:09 - Cold blooded!! Serena Skye Laine-Lobsinger just pulled out a miracle spelling “hircocervus.” I thought she was doomed. If the Bee adopted an American Idol style voting system to determine the winner, Serena would totally get the Adam Lambert vote.

Note: I love every time I type one of these kids words in, the spell checker marks them as incorrectly spelled. Even spell checker thinks these words are gibberish.

9:11 - We finally get introduced to the person who has been writing the sentences for the word use and I would have bet it was some hack comedy writer, like Bruce Vilanch, but no it’s Carolyn Andrews. But watch out Vilanch, Carolyn Andrews is coming for your spot on Hollywood Squares. Carolyn Andrews for the block! (Thanks to Super Dave for helping me out with that one.)

9:20 - I love me some Kennyi Aouad! He’s brimming with confidence; smiling, upbeat and when they gave him the word “voussoir” instead of giving the standard “oh, crap” eye roll that most kids give, he exclaimed “oooooh, yeah!” Then he went and knocked it out of the park. This kids an entertainer. I fully expect him to come out next round and do the LeBron resin toss before his word.

9:30 - If Avvinash Radakrishnan can get through spelling his name correctly then he can handle any word they throw at him.

9:31 - OH! Radakrishnan just crushed his word and threw a big ole’ fist-pump! If he wins it all do you think we’ll see that in an NBA-esque, slow motion, black and white commercial. Scripps National Spelling Bee: Where enumeration happens...

9:44 - Tino Cusi Delamerced throws out a Hail Mary answer on “deloul” with one tick left on the timer!!!! Delamerced, the pride of Cincinnati, isn’t the only one who can hit a buzzer-beater, LeBron.

9:57 - Carolyn Andrews has officially jumped the shark with the last sentence of
“Kalium, I hardly knew ‘em.” Yuck. Seriously, Vilanch watch your back.

10:01 - Aditya Chemudupaty gets the word “poivrade” which means a peppery sauce. I know think who much funnier CT’s (from Real World: Paris) fight mantra of “I’m gonna pepper yo sauce,” would have been if CT used the word “poivrade” instead.

10:07 - Round 5 comes to a close and it turned out to be a murderous one for our kids. Twenty kids got the “Ding!”, leaving sixteen competitors to battle for the crown of "Least Likely to Date in High School."

10:14 - Joey Crawford just called a foul on Kyle Mou; Mou’s upset with the call and he gets hit with a technical! Sorry, I’m getting my sports mixed up here, but the way the NBA refs have been calling the playoffs, you believed that last sentence for a split second.

10:33 - Tim Ruiter finishes out the last semifinal round giving us eleven kids in the finals. Whew, that was stressful, I’m going to take a nap, shower and carb-load for the Finals tonight on ABC. In case you’re wondering, I’m totally rooting for Kennyi Aouad and Sid Chand (because he’s from Michigan). I’m currently working on Aouad-Chand puppet commercial in case they meet in the final round.

A brief interlude before you start the second half of the post:



Now enjoy the rest of the diary, because... It's not Detroit!

8:00 p.m. - Tom Bergeron introduces the contestant, to which they all come out in a single file line and have to dap (fist-bump) the cameraperson, who has a Bee on his/her fist. Then they got in a circle, put a hand in a did a “One, two, three... SPELL!” I’m NOT making this up. I haven’t seen such awkward interactions since Ryan Seacrest attempted a High Five.

8:01 - According to Stimulus Package rules, all events must mention President Obama and hope. If you want your money, you’ve got to mention it.

Seriously, what does President Obama have to do with a spelling bee?

8:17 - Everyone has really stepped up their game tonight, no one has even gotten the Ding! yet...

8:23 - Tussah Heera looks nervous; it’s her first time at the Bee and I think the big stage may claim its first victim... that and having to spell “herniorrhaphy.”

8:24 - And she goes down; missing out on the double-R. One of the commentators said, about Heera, “She was trying to be the first winner ever from Nevada.” You got that right! I’ve been to Vegas, there are no winners; only drinking on the street and prostitution fliers. That's my Vegas.

8:27 - Kennyi Aouad strikes again! When Erin Andrews asks him about his confidence and sticks the microphone toward him, Kennyi rips it out of her hand and starts to answer her. If he starts talking in third person and asks Erin out on a date, I’m gonna adopt this kid.

8:38 - Ewwww. The first audience faux pas of the evening. They gave Serena Skye Laine-Lobsinger a premature applause before she got the dreaded Ding! Say goodnight my sweet Emo princess, your hipster hairdo will be missed.

8:50 - They just showed a “get-to-know-you” package on Kavya Shivashankar and I got to tell you this little girl is all business. She’s been a finalist four straight years (she has the tools), she knows her Bee history (which means she understands the moment and her relevance in it), she’s motivated by a former winner Nupur Lala (she’s hungry to win), watches the documentary Spellbound (she has a sense of humor) and she had the best quote by telling Erin Andrews that “you aren’t competing against the other kids, you’re competing against the dictionary” (savvy veteran move). All these kids are good at this stage, but Kavya stands out increasingly as the competition goes on.

8:54 - Down goes Chand! Down goes Chand! Down goes Chand! My main man from Michigan, Sid Chand, goes down on “apodyterium.” Last year Chand tied for second and him getting the “Ding!” is huge. All the other kids know it too, they give Chand a standing ovation as he walks off. The door has just opened a little more...

8:59 - We just finished round eight and we have seven spellers left... I need to take a walk around the block. This is stressful.

9:07 - Kyle Mou has got ice in his veins! This is how an average Kyle Mou round goes:

Kyle heads to the mic looking like he might have just woke up from a nap, ratchets down the mic because he’s about five-feet tall, repeats the word, about, twice, spells it in, about, ten-seconds, heads back to his chair for nap. Unbelievable. I will refer to him from now on as Big Daddy Kyle Mou.

9:21 - Start of round ten, still seven kids left... I’m left a little uneasy as we come back from commercial break and I see Kennyi Aouad signing autographs; don’t go T.O. on me now Kennyi. If he starts telling people to get their popcorn ready, we’re in trouble.

9:25 - After eleven straight correct answers, Tom Bergeron and Paul Loeffler, our two commentators, are openly calling upon the jinx Gods with Aishwarya Pastapur as she gets the word “xebec.” When was the last time you saw two grown men rooting for the failure of a thirteen year-old? Clearly, these guys want to go home.

9:26 - She’s not going down without a fight you two! Pastapur fights off “xebec” and Bergeron has to cancel his dinner reservations.

9:41 - We got our first misspelled word in sixteen attempts, if we go on a run here Bergeron may still be able to get a table.

9:47 - All my favorites are going down; Kennyi Aouad goes out on “palatschinken.” You did try your best and made me laugh, which is hard to do. The Bee feels a little flat now.

9:57 - Four competitors left and Big Daddy Kyle Mou steps to the plate and whiffs on “schizaffin.” My two favorites left (Aouad and BDKM) have gone out... I don’t know how I’m going to handle the Bee without them.

9:58 - Loeffler just tells us that if all the three other kids miss their words, they’ll start another round and Big Daddy Kyle Mou will be back in. And guess who’s up? Aishwarya Pastapur. You are now about to see three grown men openly root against a thirteen year-old.

9:59 - Damn! Nicely done, Pastapur. But I think my fiancee was wondering why I was yelling to the thirteen year-old on TV “Noonan! Miss it!” Not one of my finer moments.

10:01 - Three spellers left, Aishwarya Pastapur, Kavya Shivashankar and Tim Ruiter. Loeffler explains to us that we now move to the Championship Word List, which consists of 25 words and if all the kids spell those 25 words correctly we could have a co-champions. Bergeron just ran down to the stage to get a better jinxin’ spot.

10:13 - With her childhood friend (Pastapur) getting the Ding! Kavya Shivashankar goes out and leaves no doubt in anyones mind that she’s here to win this thing. She was all over “phoresy” like a spider-monkey. Now all that stands in her way of becoming the Scripps National Spelling Bee Champ is Tim Ruiter. Poor bastard.

10:15 - Here we go, Tim Ruiter gets the Ding! Now it comes down to just like Kavya said,“she’s competing against the dictionary.” One word stands in her way of becoming Bee Champion. Poor word.

10:17 - Boom goes the “Laodicean.” Congrats to Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion Kavya Shivashankar and to all the kids participating in the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bell.

With nearly six hours of running diary, I hope you enjoyed. Now I’m going to be spelling everything I see for the next two weeks.